It would take the incredible amount of HOLY SHIT moments that occurred to overcome the absolutely horrible pacing of that episode (okay, this season). I'm still stunned. My wife was too sick last night to watch so I look forward to repeating the episode tonight.

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granted, i underestimated the white walkers. somehow i overlooked the possibilty of magic ice spears. silly me. i guess it's a more even fight than i thought.

in terms of what happened, it was an impressive episode. but ultimately this episode, and this whole season, is leaving me kinda empty. this show is turning into more spectacle than substance. the insane pace they're going at is a big part of that problem. in previous seasons, the foray beyond the wall would've been spread over several episode, even half a season maybe. things like the undead bear attack (obvious foreshadowing of what took place later with the dragon) would've happened an episode or two prior, so that when we then saw a dragon turned, the setup would have been more special. benjen coming to jon's rescue would've been set up properly, instead of just coming completely out of the blue (and can we all agree that jon snow is the worst military commander of all time? somehow he always manages to get his men surrounded by an overwhelming enemy force, only to have a woman swoop in and save his ass at the last moment). the time it takes a man to run to the wall, send a raven to dragonstone, and then have dany fly back to the rescue (apparently gendry gave her their GPS coordinates, because she didn't have too hard of a time finding EXACTLY where they were trapped) would've happened on something resembling a realistic timeline. i've had qualms with this show's playing fast and loose with time and geography, but it's gotten to a point where it's so ridiculous that it pulls me out of the show now. we're starting to get into Walking Dead territory here, it's so bad. there must be something about writing about zombie hordes that makes writers lose their common sense.

maybe the best example of how much the rushed pace is hurting the show is, we know a dragon died, but we don't know which dragon died. other than that it wasn't Drogon, because Dany was riding him. but the other 2 dragons have names too. Viserion and Rhaegon. it's hard to have the emotional payoff of a major character dying when you don't know which character it is.

and in the midst of all that, they still manage to slow things down to introduce a completely stupid arya/sansa plotline. as bad as all that braavos stuff was, at least you could hope that she'd put that training to good use when she got back to westeros. instead, she takes out walder frey, then becomes completely stupid. here's an idea: maybe take out the Lannisters, destroy the army of the dead coming down to wipe out mankind, and THEN you can start to think about settling your petty sibling rivalries. if there was a westerosi version of the 'People Who Need to Be Bitchslapped' thread, arya would be at the top of the list. is this what they had in mind when arya had a choice between continuing to Kings Landing to kill Cersei, or going back to Winterfell to see what remains of her family? she chose... poorly. and so did the writers.

so obviously the lannister/targaryen/stark rivalry won't be settled this season after all, so i'll venture another prediction. this season is going to end with jon and dany both captured and held by cersei, after the truce meeting in the finale. even after seeing the wight, cersei will still betray them (wheres admiral akbar when you need him?) and believe she can take on the army of the dead on her own. next season, she (or more likely, jaime) will realize that's not the case, and dany and jon will be freed to come to the rescue. but this season is going to have a very bleak end, for sure.

All of the rushed time instances are making me crave the next books even more. Not only will the story take its time (like its author), but I'm eager to see the differences between it and the show for there shall be many!

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Cpt Kirks 2pay wrote:I don't think Dragons can kill a White Walker so they're even in that regard, so I don't see The Night King having a secret weapon that will be able to kill one.

I also imagine that all 3 dragons could have a chance of surviving the whole story, and the big arrow is nothing but a dramatic threat to take away our non-suspense watching them in battle, that ultimately will be outwitted by Dany somehow.

But I think if at least 1 of the Dragons is gonna do down it won't be this season. Right now you have the next natural story progression of Dany creating some defensive action for her dragons that puts them into a place of safety before the story arc presents a way to make them more vulnerable again. I don't think that latter story stage has enough time to hit by the end of this season.

I bet you Baxter, I double bet you, that this won't happen before this season's out. I bet you 10 times your Zoner subscription charge that you should have paid me by now.

i'll take that bet. if you lose, you admit you're really Ron Howard and change your avatar to reflect that fact.

Fievel wrote:All of the rushed time instances are making me crave the next books even more. Not only will the story take its time (like its author), but I'm eager to see the differences between it and the show for there shall be many!

i made a vow, after the show caught up with and then passed the books, that i wouldnt read another book until the show was finished. doesnt really feel necessrary now, the show is almost certainly going to finish up before the next book comes out. i can just imagine GRRM sitting there, watching these shows, and getting all worked up -- "no, that's not how that plotline's supposed to go!" "what?!? you totally fucked up that character's arc!" and just generally getting frustrated at how this show is rushing through and glossing over things i'm sure he feels are vitally important, or leaving them out altogether. i just hope it's enough to finally light a fire under his huge ass to get these books done at last.

Gendry ran back to Eastwatch, sent a raven to Dragonstone, and Dany flew her dragons to the battle site......all in the same amount of time it took Randy to get his mom when Ralphie was beating the shit out of Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story.

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Fievel wrote:Gendry ran back to Eastwatch, sent a raven to Dragonstone, and Dany flew her dragons to the battle site......all in the same amount of time it took Randy to get his mom when Ralphie was beating the shit out of Scut Farkus in A Christmas Story.

and in the books, Gendry will start running midway through 'Winds of Winter' and finally arrive at Eastwatch a couple hundred pages into the following book, with the raven not being sent until the epilogue. the next book after that will feature 1000 pages of Dany trying to decide whether or not to fly to their rescue.

they play fast and loose with editing, you can't prove how long Jon and Co were running before they got to the island, and then there is no way to determine just how long they were there before the dumbass Hound decided to provoke the zombie horde. not sure how fast ravens fly in Westeros but they aren't slow, and i'm guessing those dragons can easily top 100mph. honestly, the detail that is the most difficult to explain logistically is Dany's white fur outfit, custom tailored for an excursion to the North. did she just have one laying around, the chic who has lived her entire life in a tropical climate and had no plans to go North up until she read the note from the raven? I mean, that is a hell of an outfit to just throw together at a moment's notice.

the pace of the show is on high octane compared to the first 4-5 seasons. the death of a dragon AND the resurrection of a dragon within the span of 10 minutes of showtime? those two events would be separated by multiple episodes on the pace of the earlier seasons.

GRRM has said before that a big part of his difficulty in writing these books is figuring out how to maneuver characters to where they need to be, when they need to be there, on a plausible schedule. he's gotta be watching this season and thinking, "awww fuck it, i could've just been plucking characters up and putting them back down where i want them the whole time!"

GRRM has said before that a big part of his difficulty in writing these books is figuring out how to maneuver characters to where they need to be, when they need to be there, on a plausible schedule. he's gotta be watching this season and thinking, "awww fuck it, i could've just been plucking characters up and putting them back down where i want them the whole time!"

you're being disingenuous, though, like Trump quoting himself in Phoenix without including "on many sides", because in that SAME interview the director said the people getting their panties in a bunch over it need to get a grip and get over the time issue if they have no problem with 6 people riding on a giant fire breathing dragon.

GRRM has said before that a big part of his difficulty in writing these books is figuring out how to maneuver characters to where they need to be, when they need to be there, on a plausible schedule. he's gotta be watching this season and thinking, "awww fuck it, i could've just been plucking characters up and putting them back down where i want them the whole time!"

you're being disingenuous, though, like Trump quoting himself in Phoenix without including "on many sides", because in that SAME interview the director said the people getting their panties in a bunch over it need to get a grip and get over the time issue if they have no problem with 6 people riding on a giant fire breathing dragon.

no, THAT is being disingenuous. when you create a fictional world, whether it's a fantasy world or a sci-fi world or horror or any other kind of imagination-based fictional setting, you still have to have rules, and play by the rules you've established. you can't just throw out those rules arbitrarily when they become inconvenient. it's a contract between the creators and the audience: we accept the unreal aspects of the universe you've created, and in turn the creator(s) promise to adhere to those rules.

the rules of the world that this show's producers and writers established (or more accurately, were granted to them by GRRM) includes dragons, zombie armies, people coming back from the dead, telepathy, and other magical devices. but it also included a world that, unless otherwise superceded by one of those specific magical explanations, still adheres to the basic laws of physics. just because dragons exist in such a world, doesn't mean that anything goes. it doesn't mean that suddenly, human beings are capable of living for more than one night on a frozen lake without food or water or shelter in subfreezing temperatures, or that men can run vast distances in the snow and ravens can fly at supersonic speeds. unless you set up some magic-based rationale to support those things ahead of time within the established rules of the universe you've created, it's just as much of a problem as it would be in a non-fantasy, reality-based story.

and the director basically admitted to as much, stating they hoped by making the timeline fuzzy, that viewers would be distracted by the action into overlooking how implausible the actual timing of these events were. that has worked for them somewhat, in that a lot of the events earlier in this season aren't given a specific timeline, so we don't know exactly how long jon's trip from winterfell to dragonstone actually took, or how long danaerys has actually been in westeros now, so you could pretend they just skipped over weeks or even months of stuff happening. but the construction of the last episode doesn't allow for that vagueness, and you can't just pretend that jon's party was sitting on a little island in the middle of a frozen lake for a few days or a week because no one can survive that long in those conditions. when the show's makers are basically counting on people to ignore that kind of discrepancy in their story, that's not your usual "suspension of disbelief" stuff, it's just lazy writing. GoT used to be much more scrupulous about that kind of thing, undoubtedly due to GRRM's influence, who is a huge stickler for that, but as they've gone beyond the current books, they've basically abandoned that approach in their rush to get to the end of the show, to the detriment of it.

in a made-up world that has magic and dragons and people being brought back from the dead the "rules" of reality are up for definition as the story unfolds. how fast does a Westerosi raven fly? where has it been established? there are birds on Earth in our reality that can fly over 100mph. not dive. fly. peregrines can dive at 242 mph. how fast does a dragon fly? if a realistic bird can fly 100mph it isn't "unrealistic" to expect a bird in a fantasy world to be able to fly even faster. if a bird in that world can fly 125mph or better than a dragon should be able to fly 150mph or better. was there a clock on the screen showing how much time had passed where Jon Snow and Co were running then making their stand? it is a world of constant twilight north of the Wall, who knows exactly how long they were there, the editing is ambiguous in that respect for a reason, something else the director pointed out. it is not a stretch at all to believe that approx. 24 hours had passed from the time they left Gendry and the time Dany shows up with the dragons. do the math at how much ground can be covered at 125-150+mph in the course of 20 hours, considering that Gendry collapsed when reaching the wall, and he had given his all, and considering what people go though running a marathon and how long it takes...I think 4-5 hours is a reasonable assumption for how long Gendry was running. that leaves 19-20 hours for the raven to get to Dragonstone and then the dragons to get back.

now, and this is very important....there is no scale bar on the map in the books. the distance is foggy. there is no canon to establish the distance traveled in that episode. only estimates from readers who have constructed fan-made-maps. bottom line is there is enough left up to interpretation to allow for a consistent suspension of disbelief that allows me to continue to enjoy the show.

the books and prior seasons of the show have done more than enough to establish the size of westeros and the distance and travel times between the various cities, even if they haven't cited the precise air-speed velocity of an unladen raven. as much as i love monty python, when it comes to game of thrones, i expect a bit more realism.

TheBaxter wrote:considering the outcomes of the past couple years' elections, i'll gladly take on the role of the Frenchman in this debate. and i do fart in your general direction... north, i think it is?

btw, I am predicting that Varis will die in the season finale this weekend. it's a little out of the blue, I know, but it occurred to me.......Melisandre told Varis that she would return to Westeros because it was her fate to die in Westeros, as it was his. now, Varis is not someone who finds himself in the path of danger very often, he is no fighter and is far from battles when they are fought. what could the circumstances be in one of the next 7 episodes that would see him meeting his demise? he isn't going to be involved in the climactic battle at show's end. no death there. I think that being in the presence of Cersi and the Mountain and her guards this week will be a prime opportunity to kill him off with maximum effect for an audience reaction to end the season.

I would assume that they really can't squeeze more than 2 episodes worth of story into the final conflict with the Night King and his army once it is down to that, after the inter-human conflicts are resolved. that means somewhere during episode 4, maybe 5, next season things will come to a close with storylines involving the fight for the Iron Throne and it will become a Fire vs Ice finale. that means whatever happens this weekend it won't be the climactic showdown between Cersi and the X-Men. Or, they might set up a climactic battle at King's landing that starts the finale season but I don't think the Army of the dead and the Night King are interesting enough antagonists to carry the load as THE bad guys for 4 or 5 episodes.

I was more concerned about Jon Snow turning up at the end, getting to Westerns on a horse, when before he did it by ship. Just how long did that take, and how did he get there? Damn that horse is a good swimmer.

I guess you can say that a week or weeks went by for Jon to get back there, but it just feels that Dany with waiting on that cliff, and the Wolf and the I Can't Die Dude saying goodbye on the shore, that a small amount of time no more than a few days has passed.

Plus Jon woulda frozen to death within minutes under that ice.

Plus he is one shit warrior so far. He fucked up at The Battle of the Bastards and here I am still waiting for him to redeem himself and show why he is the hero to win the day, and here after Vision goes down he loses the plot and nearly gets himself killed.

Fuck off TheBaxter I'm not paying up, I'm too distressed over Viserion dying then meeting a horrific fate by coming back as a Zombie out to kill his own family.

i could see Varys dying, especially if Cersei has figured out that he was the one who helped Tyrion escape after killing her dad. since i've already speculated that the season will end with Cersei capturing and imprisoning Jon and Dany, it stands to reason that some blood will be shed in the process, and so any of Dany's entourage (Varys, Missandei, Jorah, Grey Worm if he's back from Casterley Rock which he probably will be because distance and time don't matter anymore) could be at risk. even Tyrion himself, i mean, who else in the world does Cersei hate more than Tyrion, regardless of whether she still thinks he killed Joffrey or not. she blames him for pretty much anything and everything that's gone wrong for her, he's like her Hillary and Obama rolled into one, if she had twitter, she'd be posting late-night drunken tweet rants about him every night. and especially now that the dragon he was supposed to ride is dead/undead, he may be even more expendable.

i also agree (wtf is going on here?) that the Night King is a weak enemy, dramatically speaking. Cersei has been a villain from the very first episode, one who's had a ton of dramatic character development, who's been through highs and lows, and we have a REALLY clear idea of her motivations, since we've heard her hissing them to Jaime all season long. what is the Night King's motivation? that a child of the forest stabbed him in the heart centuries ago, and so he had to wait until the world got cold enough for him to venture down south of the wall and kill off the human race, for no known reason except EVIL!!! ? seriously, if the crux of this epic tale is a showdown between characters we've followed for years, and a villain who we know virtually nothing about, has had zero character development over that time, who has gone whole seasons without even showing up, that's weak. the Night King is a device, a macguffin. for that ultimate showdown to have any dramatic weight, it has to be between heroes and villains that we have attachments to. even LOTR at least had Saruman as a stand-in for Sauron before the final act, and SW had Darth Vader as the primary villain in place of the Emperor. for that reason, i think Cersei has been built up to be the REAL villain of this story, and while the Night King is a larger threat and a greater evil overall, it's the conflict between Jon/Dany/etc and Cersei that is going to prove to be more effective. i'm now expecting that the NK will be dispatched with several episodes remaining, and then the real fight between Cersei and the forces of good will happen after that.

TheBaxter wrote:for that reason, i think Cersei has been built up to be the REAL villain of this story, and while the Night King is a larger threat and a greater evil overall, it's the conflict between Jon/Dany/etc and Cersei that is going to prove to be more effective. i'm now expecting that the NK will be dispatched with several episodes remaining, and then the real fight between Cersei and the forces of good will happen after that.

that would be something of a curveball, and actually a more satisfying way to dispatch of Cersi, being THE villain left to stand in the way of good and that all that stuff. it would also allow for more time to give to resolve various character arcs, extending their resolution for a few more episodes, keeping that rising action going until the end, and those who defeated the Night King would be the rightful rulers of Westeros by virtue of saving the realm, allowing them to "break the wheel" more effectively because the people would truly believe in them then and have their support as they face Cersi. that is when she decides to burn them all, Jaimie kills her, and the Mountain kills Jaimie. hhmmm, maybe your theory has merit.

TheBaxter wrote:for that reason, i think Cersei has been built up to be the REAL villain of this story, and while the Night King is a larger threat and a greater evil overall, it's the conflict between Jon/Dany/etc and Cersei that is going to prove to be more effective. i'm now expecting that the NK will be dispatched with several episodes remaining, and then the real fight between Cersei and the forces of good will happen after that.

that would be something of a curveball, and actually a more satisfying way to dispatch of Cersi, being THE villain left to stand in the way of good and that all that stuff. it would also allow for more time to give to resolve various character arcs, extending their resolution for a few more episodes, keeping that rising action going until the end, and those who defeated the Night King would be the rightful rulers of Westeros by virtue of saving the realm, allowing them to "break the wheel" more effectively because the people would truly believe in them then and have their support as they face Cersi. that is when she decides to burn them all, Jaimie kills her, and the Mountain kills Jaimie. hhmmm, maybe your theory has merit.

so, capturing and turning a dragon was the key to the white walkers being able to bring down the wall and invade westeros, that they've been waiting for all this time. maybe jon snow (ahem, excuse me, aegon targaryen) isn't the worst targaryen military leader after all...

Why was Tyrion so pissy when Jon boned his aunt?I mean, I can think of a lot of possibilities but nothing that really makes sense in terms of what was shown on screen. Did I miss something?

"How do you respond.........Lord Baelish?"I fucking screamed at the screen, having just told my wife that I hated how stupid Sansa was becoming.

For about 5 seconds I assumed Jaime was going to die. The Rains of fucking Castamere started playing! But now he's aiding the North, if not outright switching sides! I just hope that he finds a way to get Bronn to go with him.

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Fievel wrote:Why was Tyrion so pissy when Jon boned his aunt?I mean, I can think of a lot of possibilities but nothing that really makes sense in terms of what was shown on screen. Did I miss something?

if you think Tyrion was pissed, wait til Jorah finds out! first his sword, now his woman?i think Tyrion's pissiness was an extension of earlier in the episode, when he didn't find out that Jon had pledged himself to Dany until Jon revealed it at the meeting with Cersei. he's hand of the queen, and Dany is making big decisions without consulting him first, or not telling him stuff he needs to know. if Dany and Jon are going to marry, which seems the direction they're heading, Tyrion probably feels he should be consulted about their plans. and if they're not going to marry, then any child they may have been in the act of producing would be a bastard, and that opens up its own complications. if you go back to his conversations with Varys, and even his talk to Cersei when he says he believes Dany chose him as her hand to protect against her worst instincts, there's a theme of Tyrion being concerned about whether Dany is really as great and wise a ruler as he hopes and wants her to be.

Fievel wrote:"How do you respond.........Lord Baelish?"I fucking screamed at the screen, having just told my wife that I hated how stupid Sansa was becoming.

confirmed the fan theory that had been going around, that arya and sansa were working together to trap littlefinger (the other popular theory, that the night king purposefully lured Dany north of the wall because he wanted her dragon, also has more credibility now that we know what he needed that dragon for). i didn't much like how this went down though. littlefinger and varys are the two "master schemers" of this story, and their rivalry had been set up since the first season, so i was expecting/hoping that one would be the one to best the other in the end. they represent the two overall attitudes of people on the show (seeking power to help mankind vs. seeking power for one's own sake) though now i guess Dany and Cersei represent those two extremes. i just thought it was weak that littlefinger, who has so masterfully schemed his way up the ladder, starting from the very moment that set the whole course of the show in motion (the death of john arryn), should go out so easily. though it was funny to see him try to pull out every little trick in the book, in rapid succession, going from ordering his troops to protect him straight to groveling for his life, that made me laugh.

also, i think it was another example of the show's rushed pace this season causing issues. i'm still not sure exactly when sansa and arya teamed up. were they working together from the beginning? when arya found sansa's note, had sansa already clued her in to littlefinger's schemes, and did they plan to take him down from that point? or were their arguments legit, until the last moment when sansa realized what littlefinger was trying to do by dividing them, and then she clued in arya about what she was going to do? or was she on to them earlier, and that's why she felt ok sending brienne away? they still could have kept it vague enough that it was a surprise when she turned the tables on him, but i would have liked a bit more clarity afterwards about how long they had been working together on this plan. i'll have to pay more attention when i rewatch this season on blu-ray, to see whether the arya/sansa fights fit into some other context, like if they felt they were being spied on and played it up so littlefinger would think his scheme was working.

Yeah I thought hard on why Tyrion was so concerned about seeing Dany and Jon make out, it's not like he knew Jon's true identity either. But TheBaxter's explanation is weak. So that's another reason I'm not paying up.

Maybe Bran sharing his visions of Littlefinger's manipulation of Ned had made his sisters cotton on to how he was playing 2 sides against each other that this helped confirm their instincts about his schemes. About time that fucking Wanker got killed anyway. I hate that little shit and wanted him dead for so long.

Theon beating that big bastard up so easily with just a headbutt and about 5 punches to the face doesn't seem convincing. That big dude looked strong enough to make more than that. But with Cersei revealing Euron was going to get reinforcements for her all along, Theon may be compensating for his past failures for going to rescue his sister from him and assumingly removing him from the puzzle, so he will have a big part to play in the final outcome of the battle to kick the Lannister's out of King's Landing.

"It's good to see you. It's good to see you too." - Hmmmm, well seeing as there was a deleted scene of Tyrion and Bronn meeting in a previous episode to set up the 2 Lannister brothers seeing each other again, this makes me think that the finale's reacquaintance scene is bad writing, or clever writing and filming and editing. Like this was a second version reunion scene shot just in case the film makers knew that the original reunion with Tyrion and Bronn would be deleted in the final cut.

If the Blue Dragon took down that wall in the eventual outcome (which only became possible by it's introduction at last week's episode) then, in these seasons previously, why had this show's characters been dreading the Walkers breaching the wall all this time? There seemed to be no other way these zombies could climb that wall or get past it in any other way.

Brilliant episode anyway. It seems Jaime's abandonment of Cersei really has shown him to the decent person he can be, it's as much redemption as he can get.

will Jon care enough that Dany his aunt to end their romantic relationship? will he tell Dany? will Dany care enough to end their relationship? what will they name their kid? (you just know she got knocked up the first time they got busy)ORthe recent revelations and events put Dany on a path to an episode 5 death next season?

Will Tyrion let his jealousy get in the way of his commitment to serving the Khaleesi and the cause?

why is it that people feel more ill will toward Theon than Jaimie? Jaimie has done worse, killed many more "good" people, and has affected things overall in Westeros much more negatively than Theon, Theon was tortured horrifically for months on end while Jamie lost a hand quickly and was freed not long after. and yet it is Theon that people love to despise. Jaimie is so pretty....

how is Jorah going to fit in to the story going down the stretch? what is his role to play, his purpose? same for Gendry?

I thought it would be too obvious and cliché to have the Clegane brothers face off for the Mountain's demise, but after the Hound's proclamation to his brother preceding the big meeting I guess that is what we will eventually get.

will there be any dragons left alive as the end credits roll for next season's series finale? if so, how many? or will there be no dragons left alive except a clutch of eggs as a final shot?